Pushing aside the two pots I took my seat on his work-bench.
“How did he happen to bite the postman?” I asked, thinking it might do him good to talk his trouble out. “I thought Buster and the postman understood each other?”
“He was a new postman, one of them fresh guys. Buster barked at ’im, and Julie called to ’im—warned ’im that the dog would bite. ’Stead of ’im doin’ what he was told he tried to step into the room.” He straightened up and his eyes flashed with pride. “Buster pounced on ’im, ’most tore his shirt offen ’im. I wish to God he’d a tore his liver out, so I do.”
“If he didn’t draw blood why did you have him killed?” I demanded sternly, for in spite of my sympathy with the old man it appeared to me that the dog hadn’t had a square deal.
“The postmaster wrote me a letter,” he answered, as he fumbled in an old leather wallet.
It was on the official paper of the Post-Office Department of the United States, and was signed by the postmaster of New York City. Coldly official, it informed the old tinker that unless he got rid of the dog he would have to get his mail at the general delivery window of the general post-office.
“I tried to get ’em to leave my mail in the store next door, or with a friend in the next block.” He shook his head. “It was get rid of Buster or go to the general post-office.” He paused, but seeing that he had more to say I waited. “If it hadn’t been for Jack’s bein’ somewheres in France, I’d a gone to the general office. Jack’s all we’ve got, an’ it didn’t seem right we should risk not hearin’ from ’im, or”—he paused and swallowed hard—“or the government in case anything happened to ’im.”
Killing so faithful and intelligent a dog without a more serious attempt to placate the “fresh guy” seemed a dreadful act. But knowing the helplessness of the ignorant poor in New York City, I realized the injustice of finding fault with the old tinker.
Halting in the door of the shop on my way out I glanced back at its empty corners.
“I suppose the persons who wrote me those complaints against Buster did all this,” I remarked. “It didn’t take them long to find out that Buster was gone.”